Neatly carved in a soft tone of creamed corn Bakelite, this stubby log button (from the 1920's) looks like a hunk of grooved butter. Glowingly hearty and hardy, Bakelite has a high-quality merit that sets it apart from the substandard plastics that pretty much clog the world in today's nonstop ambush of material cheapness. Bakelite was a classy and short-lived plastic. Because it can't be recycled, it got bumped out of production in favor of more modern plastics, which form all the disposable "stuff" we use nowadays. Thankfully, there's probably a Bakelite leftover sitting on a shelf in an antique shop within fifty miles of just about everyone. It's getting more and more rare, but it's out there.
-Sherbert McGee
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